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I have posted a work-in-progress view of today's page and an explanation for why it is late (short version: I am doing 4 pages at the same time).
Tag: The Locked Maze 3
The Locked Maze 3: Page 45
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop
Size: 8.5X11"
All these pages have been moved over to The Locked Maze, so comments are closed here on mleiv.com. Click the link above to go to that site and comment there.
I have four pages left. And about three weeks to finish them in. So I will be very busy. Especially because I keep getting distracted with the website and other things. And then I have to focus on getting prints made for my conventions in the fall and starting up my fan sketches of tv/movies again, because there is a huge quantity of fan drawing which I have been promising myself and never had time for. A Farscape cast ATC page like my firefly one is definitely gonna happen. :) And maybe a smaller Middleman set.
The Locked Maze 3: Page 44
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop
Size: 8.5X11"
All these pages have been moved over to The Locked Maze, so comments are closed here on mleiv.com. Click the link above to go to that site and comment there.
If you want to read a breakdown on the Mormon afterlife, read: lds.org.
This is meant to be a physical representation of the metaphorical Veil of Forgetfulness (wikipedia). Using the word "Heaven" here is incorrect, as proper heaven is not entered until after Judgement Day. In the meantime, souls go to the Spirit World, which has a Paradise and a Prison. The Spirit World is just here on Earth, though, hence the need for the aforementioned veil to keep us from seeing all those ghosts all the time. Also, the word "angels" (since Mormons don't have the winged, genderless angels of Catholic lore) is Holly's grandmother differentiating between the newly dead souls and the older righteous souls present in a more official/on-the-job capacity.
Anyway, I was just trying to create a uniquely Mormon afterlife. I could have gone with the gates and St Peter and all that, and it would have been fine (apart from the Judgement Day delay and all), but I am nothing if not obsessive about the little details...
This is meant to be a physical representation of the metaphorical Veil of Forgetfulness (wikipedia). Using the word "Heaven" here is incorrect, as proper heaven is not entered until after Judgement Day. In the meantime, souls go to the Spirit World, which has a Paradise and a Prison. The Spirit World is just here on Earth, though, hence the need for the aforementioned veil to keep us from seeing all those ghosts all the time. Also, the word "angels" (since Mormons don't have the winged, genderless angels of Catholic lore) is Holly's grandmother differentiating between the newly dead souls and the older righteous souls present in a more official/on-the-job capacity.
Anyway, I was just trying to create a uniquely Mormon afterlife. I could have gone with the gates and St Peter and all that, and it would have been fine (apart from the Judgement Day delay and all), but I am nothing if not obsessive about the little details...
The Locked Maze 3: Page 43
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop
Size: 8.5X11"
All these pages have been moved over to The Locked Maze, so comments are closed here on mleiv.com. Click the link above to go to that site and comment there.
I am working on a site for Maze. Just so it will have a place to live when I am done with it. I feel at times like it is 1999 again: as in, I have spent a decade learning how to make huge glossy commercial pages that look like magazines, but now I am making a cluttered, overly-graphic, dark, un-tagged, linear site with less than 130 pages. It is just weird. But I promise, no blinking headlines and color cycling. :P And it will look nice on mobile phones. And maybe have swipe. :D
The Locked Maze 3: Page 42
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop
Size: 8.5X11"
All these pages have been moved over to The Locked Maze, so comments are closed here on mleiv.com. Click the link above to go to that site and comment there.
And welcome back to Morgan, Hyacinth, Poppy, and also Jay, Kestrel, and Tulip (who may be harder to spot). :)
The Locked Maze 3: Page 41
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop
Size: 8.5X11"
All these pages have been moved over to The Locked Maze, so comments are closed here on mleiv.com. Click the link above to go to that site and comment there.
Two pages in one week! OMG I haven't managed that in ages. Given that page 40 is just filler, it would not have been so painfully hard, but I was also helping the Significant Other finish assembling his photography final (link) and lord, I am soooo tired. I finally upgraded to Photoshop CS5.5 (wuvey-purchased copy, so I could read his camera files) and there is a bit of a learning curve, but I am giddy to report that the jagged line issue between CS3 and my tablet - which I have put up with for three years - is finally resolved! YAY! I can draw straight lines without zooming in to 400%. The downside is that the new smooth lines are so incredibly perfect that my old computer does not have the resolution to match. I keep clicking in the wrong place and getting crooked lines anyway. :/
I have been dreading this page for the last two months, but turns out that if you just stop caring and scribble in generic people shapes, and color everything in monotone, then it aint so hard after all. By my calculations there should be over 30 million ghosts waiting (thats for two years, and Morgan said it had been going on for longer). But I couldn't even draw 30 million DOTS, so you'll just have to imagine all the rest. :P
I have been dreading this page for the last two months, but turns out that if you just stop caring and scribble in generic people shapes, and color everything in monotone, then it aint so hard after all. By my calculations there should be over 30 million ghosts waiting (thats for two years, and Morgan said it had been going on for longer). But I couldn't even draw 30 million DOTS, so you'll just have to imagine all the rest. :P
The Locked Maze 3: Page 40
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop
Size: 8.5X11"
The Locked Maze 3: Page 39
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop
Size: 8.5X11"
All these pages have been moved over to The Locked Maze, so comments are closed here on mleiv.com. Click the link above to go to that site and comment there.
I originally intended a lot more color on this page, but I ended up going back to the original ghost color palette from page 8. This necessitated changing the final panel on page 38 to match, but meh, worth it. Lots of colors are too hard to work with. :P
So, this is probably the most action we've seen in the whole comic, barring the end of Book II. It was fun drawing blowing hair and capes and all that stuff. Since it is pretty much the polar opposite of normal around here. And I don't think of myself as being particularly capable when it comes to action scenes, but I guess maybe it's not so far out of reach as I had thought. :) If I ever manage to convince myself to work on my next project, this will come in useful. *steeples fingers* Excellent...
So, this is probably the most action we've seen in the whole comic, barring the end of Book II. It was fun drawing blowing hair and capes and all that stuff. Since it is pretty much the polar opposite of normal around here. And I don't think of myself as being particularly capable when it comes to action scenes, but I guess maybe it's not so far out of reach as I had thought. :) If I ever manage to convince myself to work on my next project, this will come in useful. *steeples fingers* Excellent...
The Locked Maze 3: Page 38
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop
Size: 8.5X11"
All these pages have been moved over to The Locked Maze, so comments are closed here on mleiv.com. Click the link above to go to that site and comment there.
I am not sure how I feel about this page. It is both climactic and anticlimactic at once. I mean, how incredibly thrilling is it that my heroine TOOK ONE STEP! I am sure the artists who fill Marvel and DC pages with superhero battles would be amazed at my impressive action shot there. :P But at the same time, this is kinda the entire point of my comic, that one person with zero magical powers can somehow make a difference. By doing almost nothing.
Anyway, there it is. I suppose I should worry more about revealing everything and try to save it all up for the last big page of action next week, before the wrap-up epilogue. But I am not caring about that now. At this point in the other two books, I was pretty thrilled, because I felt like I had made huge leaps in drawing skills and fan appreciation. In Book III, not so much. Meh. I am just not ready to let it go, I guess. It's been almost a whole decade of my life, after all. And when it is all done, I have to go back to the real world, a boring programmer for the rest of my life. :/
Anyway, there it is. I suppose I should worry more about revealing everything and try to save it all up for the last big page of action next week, before the wrap-up epilogue. But I am not caring about that now. At this point in the other two books, I was pretty thrilled, because I felt like I had made huge leaps in drawing skills and fan appreciation. In Book III, not so much. Meh. I am just not ready to let it go, I guess. It's been almost a whole decade of my life, after all. And when it is all done, I have to go back to the real world, a boring programmer for the rest of my life. :/
The Locked Maze 3: Page 37
image © 2011 mleiv
Medium: Photoshop
Size: 8.5X11"
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